talk-end-of-procrastination/slides/motivation.md

Motivation

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Why do we do the things we do?

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External motivation

Carrot and stick; someone else sets our path.

• numbs our self-motivation
• activity feels meaningless
• makes it easier to procrastinate

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Internal motivation

We have our own target and we follow it.

• progress feels more rewarding
• brings good mood
• engages creativity and learning

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Goal-based motivation

We want to achieve something in the future.

1. long displeasure from not reaching the goal
2. short rush of joy that quickly evaporates

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Pros: it works!

Cons: it causes us damage
it is not sustainable

Joy fades, requiring more demanding goals.

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Hedonic treadmill 🔗

Humans quickly return to a relatively stable level of happiness despite major positive or negative events.

The reward for finishing a major goal
is not worth a long struggle to get there.

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Arousal addiction

(not about sexual arousal)

Addiction to new, stronger stimuli

created by setting bigger and bigger goals.

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Journey-based motivation

Joy is found in doing an activity, not finishing it.

“Happiness now”, not just at the end.

Unlocks flow,

flow brings contentment and mastery,

that in turn brings results.

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Flow

State of deep immersion in an activity that...

• is challenging
• makes use of our strengths
• matches our skills
• is enjoyable.

We tend to lose our sense of time.

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Meaning

Your actions may have positive impact on others,

adding strong foundations for a lasting motivation.

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Going beyond an individual

• helping others
• being part of something greater
• leaving a lasting legacy

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Group vision

Cooperation of individual visions

helps the growth of one’s potential

and boosts the entire group.

The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

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TOOL: Personal Vision

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What is the direction of your journey?

What gets out of bed in the morning?

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How to build a Personal Vision?

1. SWOT analysis
2. Achievements
3. Analyzing motivating activities
4. Beta-Vision
5. Final Personal Vision

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Step 1:

Personal SWOT

• S - Strengths
• W - Weaknesses
• O - Opportunities
• T - Threats

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Time to reflect on yourself!

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Strengths

• skills, traits and qualities you have
• using them supports flow
• personal vision makes use of these as much as possible

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Weaknesses

• qualities you lack; limitations and negative traits
• using them retards flow
• personal vision avoids them if possible

These can be improved, but don’t devote too much time to it.

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Opportunities

• possibilities today’s world offers to us
• using them supports flow
• personal vision builds on them

Only a few will be used.

The rest needs to be rejected and banished:

• to gain focus, clarity and mastery,
• to avoid decision paralysis or regrets.

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Threats

• risks, possible negative impacts or scenarios
• take them into account
• recognize them and be prepared
• awareness helps with facing a potential fear

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My SWOT

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Strengths

• life-long programming experience, love building useful solutions
• attention to detail, carefulness, looking for perfection; love creating nice and clean software
• persevering problem solver; like to explore and solve mysteries in tech
• open-minded and attentive listener

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Weaknesses

• introverted, social interactions are taxing
• lacking in open confrontation, group arguments
• cautious in opinions, not an ‘influencer’

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Opportunities

• contribute to open source development
• use college degree on distributed systems
• change jobs for
  • different role
  • better pay
  • more aligned tech stack
• get exposure as an expert
• contribute to the state-of-the-art
• share knowledge through talks and blog

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Threats

• changed role: boring / stressful / annoying
• changed job:
  • low pay / annoying co-workers / toxic workplace / long commute
  • having to use Windows

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My Observations

• my SWOT felt misaligned with the career of people management
• Threats applied to the current situation as well

Change was desirable and not even that risky.

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Step 2:

Personal Achievements

• things that brought you joy / you are proud of
• provides specific evidence of your strengths
• helps to gain confidence and think positively

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My Achievements

• finished college with a cool master’s thesis
• became a dev team leader
• self-hosting the services I use via VPS
• extracted ERP legacy tax functionality via a strategy pattern
• built and coded a split keyboard
• learned to type using the Workman layout
• ...

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My Observations

• Nice! I did some cool things!
• Very little of it was connected to people management

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Step 3:

Analyzing motivating activities

Find out what drives you; strengthen your vision.

Categories of activities:

• bringing personal growth
• creating legacy
• building relationships
• with deeper meaning

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Growth : Legacy : Relationships : Meaning

An activity should ideally fit into multiple categories.

Goal: find groups of activities that support each other.

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My Activities

• writing readable code, testing, refactoring
• exploring new technologies and approaches
• contributing to open source projects
• learning through books and conferences
• knowledge sharing through blog, mentoring, talks
• working with colleagues - reviews, discussions
• research of innovative solutions
• solving problems, making software more useful ...

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My Activities Grouped

• collaborative software development (direct)
• exchange of experience (learning & teaching)
• research, experiments, investigation

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Step 4:

Beta-Vision

Finding a personal vision takes effort and time.

Finding a beta version is easier

and you won’t procrastinate to start!

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Answer these...

1. Favorite quote/idea that resonates?
2. Life values?
3. Fulfilling activities?
4. Meaningful activities?

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My Beta-Vision

• coding useful software on a daily basis, publicly
• learning from others and sharing my knowledge

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Step 5:

Final Personal Vision

A few paragraphs of what you want to be doing,

taking into account the analysis from the previous steps.

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My Final Vision

WIP

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Act Now!

How can you incorporate your vision in the daily life?

Starting small is fine, as long as you start!

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My First Steps

1. Daily coding refresher:
   • Kotlin Koans
   • Go by Example
   • Learn Go with Tests
   • Personal React project
2. Fixing defects in the Android apps that I use (in Kotlin).

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My Findings

This covered:

• coding useful software publicly
• learning from others

i.e. my personal vision.

I regularly experienced flow, improved my skills and really enjoyed doing it.